Reporting Recipe

Sunlight Research Center worked with The Nevada Independent to help identify Paycheck Protection Program loans to 17 Nevada congressional candidates.

The U.S. Small Business Administration backed and distributed PPP loans to help businesses keep their workforce employed during the COVID-19 crisis from April 2020 to May 2021.

Along with the candidates, we also searched for loans to their businesses and spouses.

The Independent used this data to publish a story comparing the candidates’ loans to their public statements on government spending.

The following is a step-by-step guide you can use to identify PPP loans to political candidates, their businesses and their spouses.

STEP-BY-STEP

Step 1: Run LexisNexis reports (see Step 3 if you don’t have a LexisNexis subscription) on each candidate to: (a) identify their full name and any other names they have used, such as nicknames or maiden names; (b) identify their spouse and their spouse’s name variations; (c) begin to find companies and business sectors associated with the candidate; and (d) identify addresses associated with the candidate to determine the states in which to search for the candidate’s and their spouse’s businesses by checking secretary of State websites and other sources.

Step 2: Run LexisNexis reports on each candidate’s spouse to find companies and addresses associated with them.

Step 3: Verify LexisNexis reports and/or conduct background research on candidates without proprietary databases:

For researchers who do not have access to proprietary databases, there are a number of strategies that can be used to find most or all of the information available from LexisNexis. These searches should also be conducted to find information that LexisNexis doesn’t have and to verify information from LexisNexis.

To find a candidate’s spouse, check the following places:
1. Background check websites: Here is a list of sites, such as beenverified.com, that aggregate information about people from public records and other sources and may help you find candidates’ and their spouses’ names, name variations, business names, and addresses. These sites cost less than many proprietary databases.
2. Marriage indexes: Depending on the jurisdiction, there may be a publicly available index of marriage licenses, either at the county or the municipal level. See, for example, the Miami-Dade County marriage license search or the New York City marriage index.
3. Internet search: Google the candidate and include any information already known about them, e.g., age, home state, previous professional experience, and associated people.
4. Campaign sites: If the person has previously run for or held elected office, their campaign website is a great place to find biographical information, such as names of family members. If the candidate no longer has an active campaign site, use the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to search for snapshots of their past campaign site.
To find businesses associated with candidates and their spouses:
1. Secretary of state business searches: Search for names and addresses in all states where the candidate has a footprint. Always also search in the states where many out-of-staters register businesses: Delaware, Florida, Nevada and Texas.
2. State occupational licensing boards: Search for individual and business names.
3. Federal- and state-level personal financial disclosures: For candidates who have run for or held elected office, see Step 4 below for detailed instructions on how to search these records.
4. Internet searches:
  1. Candidate/spouse first and last names + business sector, e.g., “Joe Smith” or “Lisa Smith” or “Lisa Jones” + casino
  2. Candidate/spouse first and last names + business sector + primary state of residence
To find addresses associated with candidates and their spouses:
1. Local property records: Depending on the jurisdiction, the recorder of deeds, county clerk or assessor’s office may offer online access to documents relating to real property and other official documents. In most jurisdictions, counties maintain these records, but in some states, towns do.
2. Business addresses: Search secretary of state websites and Open Corporates.

Step 4: Find other companies associated with the candidates and their spouses by analyzing the candidates' personal financial disclosures. PFDs are available for federal and state candidates. These are published on different schedules because disclosure deadlines vary depending on the jurisdiction. For our research project, this research step was essential to finding candidates’ and their spouses’ businesses.

To find state PFDs, search the secretary of state website in the candidates’ home state. We used the Nevada SOS Campaign Financial Disclosure Report search function.

To find federal PFDs, we used the following websites:

Step 5: Create a spreadsheet for each candidate and their spouse that includes the following fields:

Candidate first and last names
Candidate’s spouse’s first and last names
Business names
Associated business address(es)
Role of candidate or spouse in the business
Loan number
Type of loan
Original subsidy cost
Face value of direct loan
Loan distribution date
Loan forgiveness date

Here is an example of the formatting we used for one of the candidate spreadsheets:

Step 6: Search the candidates’, their spouses’ and their companies’ names through PPP Borrower Search, Google searches [names and company names + PPP], on USASpending.gov, and ProPublica PPP Search.

Through the process of searching for PPP loans, we identified other types of loans, such as disaster assistance loans and economic injury disaster loans, that the candidates had received. The Nevada Independent also referenced these loans in the article.

The final product of this research can be viewed here. Below is an image of the interactive data that The Nevada Independent published with the PPP findings.

Questions or comments about Sunlight's workshops and resources? Contact Elizabeth at elizabeth@sunlightsearch.net